archaeologyhttp://elevatedifference.com/taxonomy/term/142/all
enCleopatra: A Biographyhttp://elevatedifference.com/review/cleopatra-biography
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<div class="author">By <a href="/author/duane-w-roller">Duane W. Roller</a></div><div class="publisher"><a href="/publisher/oxford-university-press">Oxford University Press</a></div> </div>
<p>Cleopatra is a cipher, an enigmatic and historically remote figure reimagined until she has become, for much of the world and for much of modern history, the apotheosis of desire, representative of the potency of feminine allure. As with the search for the historical Jesus, separating the real figure from the myth is complicated not only by our fascination with all the artistic interventions and the millennia of (mis)representation but also by the paucity of hard evidence. The slender record that remains is complicated by the bias of her contemporary observers (mostly suspicious and resentful Romans) and the tangle of political agendas that surrounded her reign.</p>
<p>Distinguishing reality from the myth is Duane Roller’s project in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195365534?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=feminrevie-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0195365534">his new biography of Cleopatra</a>. He marshals the modest amount of fairly reliable biographical information, supplemented by a helpful sketch of the political and social world of Ptolemaic Egypt in the first century BCE. But was Cleopatra, well, <em>Cleopatra</em>?</p>
<p>Sources disagree about her physical attractiveness, although it seems likely that she was relatively short. The book offers an array of physical images from statuary and contemporary coinage, but there is little commonality among the images, so her actual appearance remains mysterious. The record of her ascent to the throne and involvement in Roman politics would seem to confirm her reputation as ruthless and Machiavellian, although her supposed suicide by snakebite is almost certainly fictional, as Joyce Tyldesley, who covers much of the same ground in her new book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465009409?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=feminrevie-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0465009409">Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt</a></em>, has convincingly demonstrated.</p>
<p>Readers hoping to find some account of the controversy over Cleopatra’s racial identity, that has been such an exciting and often public part of contemporary academic discussion, will be disappointed. Further, Roller’s diction seems dated (“the marriage produced no issue” and his use of B.C., for example). What would solidly justify this project is a “new” Cleopatra, one firmly rooted in newly discovered or reinterpreted documentary evidence and grounded in the historical context in which she moved. The same constraint that excludes the mythic elements from this study also seems to prevent a newly and sharply imagined Cleopatra from emerging here.</p>
<p>The closest the author comes to a revisionary portrait is in his account of Cleopatra’s public oratory, and particularly in her apparent authorship of treatises on stunningly banal subjects such as treating dandruff or curing baldness. In 'The Cosmetics,' a collection of writing attributed to her, we see a leader not exclusively concerned with war and geopolitics, but also with the everyday welfare of her people.</p>
<p>Roller’s approach can tell us the types of boats that sailed on the Kydnos River and the apparel Egyptian queens would have worn. But it misses the spiritual force of that figure still resplendent and still threatening two millennia later.</p> <div>
<span class="reviewer-names"><strong>Written by:</strong> <a href="/reviewer/rick-taylor">Rick Taylor</a></span>, March 4th 2010 </div>
<div class="tag-list">Tags: <a href="/tag/archaeology">archaeology</a>, <a href="/tag/biography">biography</a>, <a href="/tag/egypt">Egypt</a>, <a href="/tag/history">history</a>, <a href="/tag/queen">queen</a></div> </div>
http://elevatedifference.com/review/cleopatra-biography#commentsBooksDuane W. RollerOxford University PressRick TaylorarchaeologybiographyEgypthistoryqueenThu, 04 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000admin3731 at http://elevatedifference.comThe Bible Unearthed: The Making of a Religionhttp://elevatedifference.com/review/bible-unearthed-making-religion
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<div class="author">Directed by <a href="/author/thierry-ragobert">Thierry Ragobert</a></div><div class="publisher"><a href="/publisher/first-run-features">First Run Features</a></div> </div>
<p><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001VDSSCW?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=feminrevie-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B001VDSSCW">The Bible Unearthed</a></em> is a French documentary based on the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684869136?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=feminrevie-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0684869136">2001 bestselling book</a> by the same name authored by Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University <a href="http://fontes.lstc.edu/%7Erklein/Documents/grounds.htm">Israel Finkelstein</a> and Neil Asher Silberman, Director of the Ename Centre for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation. Finkelstein’s archaeological investigation seeks to challenge the historical accuracy of the Bible by placing it in political, geographical, historical, and cultural contexts. We are toured through excavations in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, including Megiddo, a site of twenty-five scrutinized strata worth 7,000 years of history.</p>
<p>This main investigation is fed by interviews with biblical scholars from France, Canada, Switzerland, Israel, Belgium, and the U.S., and museums such as the Louvre, the Museum of Cairo, the Museum of Jerusalem, and the British Museum, as well as archaeological specialists from the Levant. Archival footage of previous excavations, aerial photography, maps, computer animations, cuneiform tablets, extensive ruins, and various artifacts all supplement the interviews.</p>
<p>Copious questions are constantly posed by the narrator in an effort to evoke mystery—an effort that fails and evokes annoyance instead. This method also helps rob the film of dynamism, causing it to progress at an excruciatingly slow pace. The narrator uses florid language to say nothing. His are metaphors, general facts, and reiterations doled out sluggishly.</p>
<p>Accompanied by silence or music, shots of landscapes, old books, and close-ups of excavated finds are ubiquitous. Several of the questions posed are eventually answered by the various biblical scholars and archaeologists toward the end of each episode, which is when the episodes finally become engaging.</p>
<p>First is “The Patriarchs,” which begins with Genesis and evaluates where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ostensibly lived: Canaan. This episode is mostly vague and filled with questions. Next, “The Exodus” presents us with less speculation and more solid information, this time on Egypt and the story of Moses.</p>
<p>The third episode, “The Kings,” spans the story of God asking Joshua to conquer Israel, a feat that was then purportedly accomplished in two weeks. “The Kings” is the most compelling and dynamic episode thus far, in part because it puts the 1950s Israel excavation findings into a contemporary context. The archaeologists’ conclusions established just after the country’s independence, we learn, managed to fuel the notion that force and violence are necessary to give birth to a nation. This notion was allegedly what led to the conquest of Galilee by the Israelites.</p>
<p>The final episode, “The Books,” hunts for the writers of the Bible and the original Israelites, coming up with fascinating conclusions. This film is an engrossing adventure for religious enthusiasts, although not for the faint of heart. Let’s just say that much of the Bible is historically disproven and stories attributed to the political will of their writers. But if you want to skip the fluff and get more depth, go for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684869136?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=feminrevie-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0684869136">the book</a>.</p> <div>
<span class="reviewer-names"><strong>Written by:</strong> <a href="/reviewer/natalia-real">Natalia Real</a></span>, September 3rd 2009 </div>
<div class="tag-list">Tags: <a href="/tag/archaeology">archaeology</a>, <a href="/tag/bible">Bible</a>, <a href="/tag/documentary">documentary</a></div> </div>
http://elevatedifference.com/review/bible-unearthed-making-religion#commentsFilmsThierry RagobertFirst Run FeaturesNatalia RealarchaeologyBibledocumentaryThu, 03 Sep 2009 23:37:00 +0000admin2583 at http://elevatedifference.comThe Blue Manuscripthttp://elevatedifference.com/review/blue-manuscript
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<div class="author">By <a href="/author/sabiha-al-khemir">Sabiha Al Khemir</a></div><div class="publisher"><a href="/publisher/verso">Verso</a></div> </div>
<p><em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1844673081?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=feminrevie-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1844673081">The Blue Manuscript</a></em>, featuring an indigo cover laced with gold detail, aesthetically embodies its elusive subject, a legendary medieval copy of the Quran. Al Khemir's novel traces the archaeological expedition in search of the manuscript yearned for by collectors and scholars alike. Led by the enthusiastic Professor O'Brien, the eclectic group of researchers meets in Cairo as they prepare to embark upon a collector funded expedition in the remote village of Wadi Hassoun.</p>
<p>Donatella (an Italian archaeologist), Mark (an American project manager), Kodama San (Japanese site surveyor), Hans (the German conservator playfully nicknamed "Glasses" by a flirtatious Donatella), Alan (the professor's prized British student) and Mustapha (an Egyptian guide) compose the mosaic of expedition participants, which expands throughout the novel as more local figures (including the go-between Rayyed Ahmed and the young boy Mahmoud) become associated with the group. Zohra, the English-Tunisian interpreter, perhaps best echoes the life of the author as she occupies a privileged (albeit at times frustrated) narrative position within the novel.</p>
<p>Upon arriving in Cairo, each of the expedition's members experiences his or her own unique sense of foreignness. None of them, aside from the professor, are intimately familiar with the region yet all are crucial to the project's research, being at once at home and foreign within their new surroundings. Al Khemir delicately captures moments of meeting and simultaneous intimacy so common to the dynamic of international research projects: "Different people, of different races, cultures, and from different social backgrounds, thrown into a primal situation, the only link between them the buried past of a civilization alien to them."</p>
<p>Zohra's role, as interpreter is least related to the research at hand and for this, she feels an outsider among outsiders. She struggles with the notion of belonging in the face of cultural and linguistic hybridity; she describes herself as "being in-between," "Half-half. Rarely did people want to know about both halves, about her other half. The other half was always the other, depending on where she was." Zohra finds the role of intermediary dissatisfying and rejects her "in-betweenness." She longs for a voice of her own and dreams of writing a novel as she patiently waits for the words to emerge from the dictionary that she guards by her bedside.</p>
<p>Upon reading <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1844673081?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=feminrevie-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1844673081">The Blue Manuscript</a></em>, the reader departs on her own expedition where what is unknown overshadows what has already come to light. Al Khemir's writing is seductive; her mosaic cast of characters develops alongside the expedition itself. Descriptions are at first sparse, even frustrating to the reader, leaving her to excavate her own meaning and anticipate further discovery. Detailed physical descriptions of the characters, for example, are not revealed until well into the work, forcing the reader to partake in her own journey of discovery.</p>
<p>Interspersed within the tale of the expedition in the search of the Blue Manuscript are first-century fictional narratives depicting the writing of the document, creating a rich tapestry of voices that at once embrace and dissolve differences and contribute to a kaleidoscopic rendering of one of the most treasured documents in Islamic history.</p> <div>
<span class="reviewer-names"><strong>Written by:</strong> <a href="/reviewer/melissa-mccarron">Melissa McCarron</a></span>, March 6th 2009 </div>
<div class="tag-list">Tags: <a href="/tag/archaeology">archaeology</a>, <a href="/tag/egypt">Egypt</a>, <a href="/tag/history">history</a>, <a href="/tag/islam">Islam</a>, <a href="/tag/medieval">medieval</a>, <a href="/tag/novel">novel</a>, <a href="/tag/quran">Quran</a>, <a href="/tag/religion">religion</a></div> </div>
http://elevatedifference.com/review/blue-manuscript#commentsBooksSabiha Al KhemirVersoMelissa McCarronarchaeologyEgypthistoryIslammedievalnovelQuranreligionSat, 07 Mar 2009 00:29:00 +0000admin2290 at http://elevatedifference.com